Post by Trog on Feb 14, 2017 9:33:03 GMT

Altogether, I think it is a positive for Trump. I am no expert on Flynn's career, but from what I have read he seems to be too much of a loose cannon. With some strange ideas to boot.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some other motivation behind Flynn's resignation, other than his indiscretion with the Russians, perhaps even the more important one. (The Russian thing is perhaps unfortunate, but I think it was actually quite minor and easily survivable with the appropriate support and spin):

During the last weekend of January, Trump had a telephone conversation with the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Initial reports were that the conversation was cordial and constructive. 4 days later, however, the main stream media reported that Trump had an altercation with Turnbull about the relocation of refugees to the US, and then terminated the call.

During the call, only the following people were present: Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer and Michael Flynn. Unless the office was tapped, which I suppose is grossly illegal and improbable, it must have been one of those who leaked the substance of the call to the press. And although both Bannon and Spicer are intimately linked with the media, and could perhaps calculate some political advantage in leaking the call, I also think that both of them would've determined that it won't be worth the risk. Flynn, however, has a reputation of talking too much, in an administration that has become notorious for leaks.

Anyway, up to this past weekend, the noises from the White House were still supportive of Flynn. However, during the weekend, that changed to being noncommittal. Also over the weekend, Steve Bannon had dinner with Flynn and on Monday Flynn resigned.

Post by Trog on Feb 25, 2017 13:24:47 GMT

The theory has been advanced that, to get rid of Bannon, the image must be manufactured in the public mind that Bannon calls the shots, and that Trump obeys. Since Trump wants to be seen as the alpha male, the strong man and the leader, he will get so pissed of with this that he will fire Bannon. Examples of this theory in practice abound:

I agree with the principle of the theory. Except for the following:I don't think that Trump can fire Bannon. It is Bannon's deep understanding that gives coherence and direction to Trump's presidency (and did so when applied to Trump's floundering campaign as of August 2016, which gave Trump the presidency), without which it would almost certainly dissolve into a collection of random slogans. I'm sure that Trump knows that, and that everybody else around Trump knows that. If Bannon goes, Trump dies.And, of course, Bannon knows that too, which is probably why he has withdrawn almost totally from public engagement, even though he is a powerful and persuasive speaker. A much better speaker than Trump, in fact. And when he does speak in public, he is always at pains to point out that everything they do originates exclusively with Trump.

It is increasingly evident that perceptions of freedom and democracy are changing in a way that seems to lend some credence to Bannon’s (and Plato’s) views. According to research published in the Journal of Democracy, the percentage of people in Australia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the US who maintain that it is “essential” to live in a democratic society has nose-dived as the memory of the Second World War has faded away. The figure is now below 50 per cent among millennials in all six countries. Plato’s fatalistic theories of regime change may seem farfetched, but it is difficult to deny that some vast structural shift is now underway.

Mr. Bannon, 63, has won a reputation for abrasive brilliance at almost every stop in his unorthodox career — as a naval officer, Goldman Sachs mergers specialist, entertainment-industry financier, documentary screenwriter and director, Breitbart News cyber-agitprop impresario and chief executive of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. One Harvard Business School classmate described him to The Boston Globe as “top three in intellectual horsepower in our class — perhaps the smartest.” Benjamin Harnwell of the Institute for Human Dignity, a Catholic organization in Rome, calls him a “walking bibliography.” Perhaps because Mr. Bannon came late to conservatism, turning his full-time energy to political matters only after the Sept. 11 attacks, he radiates an excitement about it that most of his conservative contemporaries long ago lost.

It is increasingly evident that perceptions of freedom and democracy are changing in a way that seems to lend some credence to Bannon’s (and Plato’s) views. According to research published in the Journal of Democracy, the percentage of people in Australia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the US who maintain that it is “essential” to live in a democratic society has nose-dived as the memory of the Second World War has faded away. The figure is now below 50 per cent among millennials in all six countries. Plato’s fatalistic theories of regime change may seem farfetched, but it is difficult to deny that some vast structural shift is now underway.

The word "nuanced" is a good one. The hostility, subdued though, is still there. It seems to me, implied above, that Bannon does not care much for democracy.My question is whether he would be prepared to foist his views on the population against their will. This makes introduction of new policies very difficult. By and large, Trump (with Bannon behind him) goes out of his way to be as conciliatory as possible. We are talking a negotiated, consensus driven change here. Secondly, one would have to look at the study about democracy, but I would be very surprised if the respondents would actually want to live in non-democratic societies. My suspicion is that in all likelihood they realise that democracy is not always the answer in a society. Not, at least, in the short term. This does not imply an automatic endorsement of command driven societies - granted, I am guessing here.

As for Plato, I recall that he favoured a society run by the best qualified people. He advocated training rulers for the job. Would Trump, coming from a different background fit this bill in terms of traditional requirements? I doubt it, but his management skills are perhaps what is needed. One runs into questions about qualifications in an evolving society. Even if Plato is endorsed, the problem still is what happens when two candidates are on par.

In short, I don't think dragging Plato into the article, clarifies anything. Painting Trump/Bannon as anti-democratic is also a smear. Perhaps they would like to be, but I am pretty sure they appreciate that in the US it cannot be done. They need a majority and the bigger, the better. That perhaps is one reason why they are so upset about a bad press.

The fact that I am considered an adult is both terrifying and hillarious

Post by Trog on Mar 3, 2017 15:27:46 GMT

Vanity Fair is a magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.

I do find this article interesting, though. (I cannot get myself away from the conviction that, should Bannon and Trump manage to survive together for the next 8 years, we will be witnessing something extraordinary the history of the world):

It is pretty common in this day and age for senior White House officials to have high profiles in the media, making the rounds on the talk-show circuit and encouraging lengthy spreads in the papers and across the Internet. As with so many other things, Steve Bannon, the White House strategist and the chief ideologist of the Trump administration, has broken the mold, making virtually no mainstream-media appearances since he took over the Trump campaign in August. It is a direct reflection of the fact that Bannon appears to be disinterested in playing the “Washington game” and adhering to its rules. Quite a number of people come to Washington saying that they will act differently than their predecessors; Bannon, however, actually seems to mean it. Last year, he told me that he viewed Trump as a “blunt instrument” for his ideology. Now, Bannon seems entirely focused on pushing his agenda. A swirl through the talk show circuit could only be a distraction from his task at hand.

While Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer have become our political Kardashians—virtually unavoidable, and rapidly overstaying their welcome—Bannon, by comparison, has remained virtually invisible. It is frustrating to many that such a consequential and unusual figure is not available for on-the-record conversations. As a direct result, a new breed of Bannonologists have emerged, pouring over his scant public record for insights into his beliefs and his values. His speech to a Vatican group has been read with Talmudic intensity; his single mention of an obscure Italian philosopher, Julius Evola, earned a front-page article in The New York Times; his tour on a Navy destroyer during the Iran hostage crisis received similar treatment in The Washington Post; and many outlets have treated us to the alleged import of the books that Bannon has been known to read. One recent Times article was simply, and expertly, titled: “Steve Bannon’s Book Club.”

It is all wonderfully speculative, of course, but perhaps a necessary thing. Bannon, in many ways, is the face, hidden though it may be, of a new populism in this country. And it is a curiosity of our media-soaked times that so little can still be known about the private philosophy of such a public person.

Professor Richard Hofstadter began his famous essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” with the observation that “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.” Bannon is certainly one of the angriest of those minds. But behind the heated and race-baiting rhetoric that he refined at Breitbart is a serious philosophy. When I first met him in New York last summer, Bannon described to me how the working class in America are the new Gracchi, a reference to the working class of Roman times. It is fairly obscure reference, or at least I had no idea what he was talking about, but the descriptions turn out to have an interesting origin.

The Brothers Gracchus, Tiberius and Gaius, were elected tribunes who advocated for reformist legislation in the Roman Senate that would help the working class, the urban poor, and veterans. Tiberius was elected first in 133 B.C. and quickly proposed to redistribute vast government land holdings for the benefit of veterans and the tenant class—a plan that was not well received by rich landowners, who had been acquiring the acreage through various secretive and likely illicit means. The landowners, and their allies in the Senate, displayed their displeasure by ambushing Tiberius during a caucus and beating him to death with stools and cudgels.

Nine years later, Tiberius’s brother Gaius was elected tribune. He was, like his brother, a populist but a more canny one. Gaius successfully revived his brother’s land redistribution legislation and created small landholdings in the near Roman territories, and he also implemented a monthly food ration for urban dwellers who could not take advantage of the new land opportunities. He was more successful and lasted longer than his brother, but in the end met a similar fate. Outmaneuvered by powerful Senate interests who successfully ran a candidate who falsely promised even greater benefits for the working class (sound too familiar?), Gaius and his supporters were harassed by the new leadership. Pursued and without options, Gaius ordered his own slave to stab him to death.

It is a pretty grim story in the end, but it is a window into how Bannon views the conflict between the people and the Establishment—one that is deep, wide, and at least politically violent. Most important, it suggests the frame in which Bannon views how policies have historically been manipulated to the benefit of elites and to the detriment of the working class.

If this philosophy was limited to class conflict and greed, Bannon would be an interesting, but hardly revolutionary, figure. But his thinking appears to go further than that. In the opening paragraph of this article, I described Bannon as the chief ideologist of the Trump administration. The term has a Soviet tinge to it, which is probably not the association currently desired in this White House. But I don’t mean it in any particularly value-laden sense. Previous administrations did not need an ideologist, chief or otherwise, because since at least World War II both parties have shared in a Western consensus that the world is better off with greater interdependencies, forged through open markets, international organizations (such as the World Bank and the E.U., to name two), and relatively free transit of goods and people. Bannon and Trump do not appear to share in that consensus, and Bannon at least seems intent on articulating a new nationalist vision, one that emphasizes the differences between nations, not their commonalities. He tried to amicably position this ideology at CPAC last week when he noted, “We are a nation with a culture and a reason for being.”

It’s hard to argue with that point. In its own way, it harkens to the notion of American exceptionalism that conservatives tend to favor. But, in practice, on the campaign and at Breitbart, it also spoke to the uglier side of nationalism: racial divisiveness, cultural jingoism, and a dangerous critique of people who are not like us, with the “us” defined rather narrowly. When I interviewed Bannon last year, he described to me his plan for unraveling the old order and instituting a new populist ethic. In rapid-fire order, he told me that the key was solving China, fixing immigration, and handling the Islam question. This list now apparently also includes “deconstructing the administrative state” and presumably the power source of the hated Washington bureaucracy.

As an outsider and a challenger to the received order, Bannon is not inclined to think in modest terms. Take immigration for instance. At Breitbart, Bannon focused on delegitimizing the presence of illegal immigrants through stories of crime and economic abuse. That is all well-trod ground in this day and age, but Bannon’s concern about immigration is not limited to illegals. In his America-first world, he has expressed at least a theoretical interest in shutting down legal immigration, at least until America has taken care of its internal problems first. (Before his first address to congress, reports surfaced that Trump remained open to a more hospitable plan.)

But Bannon’s skeptical view of legal immigration reflects a belief that modern immigration policy has been developed without real regard to the interests and views of American workers. As William Voegeli, a senior editor of the Claremont Review of Books, described it to me, it is apparently not the concept of immigration that irks Bannon so much as the fact that “no one consented to the demographic change” that the last generation of immigration has wrought.

There is history here, one that Bannon is no doubt aware of: the Immigration Act of 1965, better known as the Hart-Celler Act, junked the national origins test that had been the basis of American immigration policy for over four decades. According to Charles Kesler, the noted political scholar at Claremont McKenna College and its Claremont Institute, the change was viewed at the time as a civil-rights law that removed the stain of racial and regional bias from our immigration laws, instead replacing it with the policy of family reunification. No one expected the law to dramatically change the demographics of immigration, but in fact it did exactly that: the last 50 years has seen an extraordinary influx of immigrants into the United States. The foreign-born population grew from under 10 million in 1970 to more than 40 million in 2015. It is an extraordinary change, and one that benefits, for example, businesses seeking low-cost labor. But it is less certain, as Bannon would point out, that it has been good for the Gracchi.

The most jarring display at last week’s CPAC conference was indisputably the group hug at CPAC between Bannon, Reince Priebus, and CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp. A year ago, Bannon couldn’t buy a ticket to get into the room, but this year he was greeted with adulation. If the election had turned out differently—if a relatively small number of votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin had swung the other way—the Republican establishment would no doubt be pillorying Bannon and Trump for bringing dishonor on the party of Reagan for race-baiting and their indifference to facts. But owning the White House for the first time in a while has a way of changing perspectives, and Trump, to be fair, is showing some skill in doling out victories to various Republican constituencies: talk of “deconstructing the administrative state” is music to main-street conservatives, and quick action around abortion and transgender rights no doubt earns high-fives from Evangelicals and social conservatives.

But there are irreconcilable tensions here, both philosophical and social as well. For Bannon, Preibus, and Paul Ryan and their ilk are not part of the Gracchi team. In this morality play, they more accurately represent the Roman senators who stabbed and clubbed the Gracchi brothers to death and who buried the hopes of the people underneath the greed of the aristocracy. In the long run, no shared office suite and fixed smiles can paper over those very real differences.

Post by cjm on Mar 3, 2017 18:01:15 GMT

Professor Richard Hofstadter began his famous essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” with the observation that “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds.” Bannon is certainly one of the angriest of those minds. But behind the heated and race-baiting rhetoric that he refined at Breitbart is a serious philosophy. When I first met him in New York last summer, Bannon described to me how the working class in America are the new Gracchi, a reference to the working class of Roman times. It is fairly obscure reference, or at least I had no idea what he was talking about, but the descriptions turn out to have an interesting origin.

The Brothers Gracchus, Tiberius and Gaius, were elected tribunes who advocated for reformist legislation in the Roman Senate that would help the working class, the urban poor, and veterans. Tiberius was elected first in 133 B.C. and quickly proposed to redistribute vast government land holdings for the benefit of veterans and the tenant class—a plan that was not well received by rich landowners, who had been acquiring the acreage through various secretive and likely illicit means. The landowners, and their allies in the Senate, displayed their displeasure by ambushing Tiberius during a caucus and beating him to death with stools and cudgels.

Nine years later, Tiberius’s brother Gaius was elected tribune. He was, like his brother, a populist but a more canny one. Gaius successfully revived his brother’s land redistribution legislation and created small landholdings in the near Roman territories, and he also implemented a monthly food ration for urban dwellers who could not take advantage of the new land opportunities. He was more successful and lasted longer than his brother, but in the end met a similar fate. Outmaneuvered by powerful Senate interests who successfully ran a candidate who falsely promised even greater benefits for the working class (sound too familiar?), Gaius and his supporters were harassed by the new leadership. Pursued and without options, Gaius ordered his own slave to stab him to death.

It is a pretty grim story in the end, but it is a window into how Bannon views the conflict between the people and the Establishment—one that is deep, wide, and at least politically violent. Most important, it suggests the frame in which Bannon views how policies have historically been manipulated to the benefit of elites and to the detriment of the working class.

...

But there are irreconcilable tensions here, both philosophical and social as well. For Bannon, Preibus, and Paul Ryan and their ilk are not part of the Gracchi team. In this morality play, they more accurately represent the Roman senators who stabbed and clubbed the Gracchi brothers to death and who buried the hopes of the people underneath the greed of the aristocracy. In the long run, no shared office suite and fixed smiles can paper over those very real differences.

Superimposing the Graecii narrative here, makes for a motley fabric where irony somersaults a number of times, and the moral of the story takes its own course - perhaps leading nowhere.

In short, the Roman history beginning with the Graecii brothers and ending with Nero (or perhaps even the fall of the Roman Empire), perhaps shows the folly of allowing the plebs a say in government. It led to bloody civil wars, the destruction of the Roman Republic and a society reeling under despotism and collapse into barbarism.

I doubt whether this is the interpretation intended by either Bannon or Vanity Fair. The Vanity Fair version where Bannon et al are not part of the Graecii populism (which, by the way, did not end with the deaths of the Graecii brothers), in fact might even be the better route.

Maybe he thinks that the way to strengthen his presidency is to become more conciliatory, to move closer to the 'establishment'. If so, he is wrong - these people hate him and will do anything to get rid of him. His only hope of serving out his term and to maybe get re-elected is to relentlessly push the agenda formulated by Bannon during the last few months of his campaign.

The US is irrevocably divided and these rifts will get wider. There is no possibility of a reconciliation - the only issue is of who is going to win. Trump has the support of the silent majority and he must work towards consolidating that support, as well as to unsilence that majority. The only thing that keeps his opponents in check is fear. Fear of the consequences should they succeed in ousting Trump. It is that fear which he should be working on.

Maybe he thinks that the way to strengthen his presidency is to become more conciliatory, to move closer to the 'establishment'. If so, he is wrong - these people hate him and will do anything to get rid of him. His only hope of serving out his term and to maybe get re-elected is to relentlessly push the agenda formulated by Bannon during the last few months of his campaign.

The US is irrevocably divided and these rifts will get wider. There is no possibility of a reconciliation - the only issue is of who is going to win. Trump has the support of the silent majority and he must work towards consolidating that support, as well as to unsilence that majority. The only thing that keeps his opponents in check is fear. Fear of the consequences should they succeed in ousting Trump. It is that fear which he should be working on.

He has made so many conciliatory gestures which are ignored, that I agree, he might as well stick to his original agenda. He is not assisted by the Republicans either. In many ways, they are a major obstacle. I seethe when I see the treatment meted out to him and his family.

The fact that I am considered an adult is both terrifying and hillarious

Post by Trog on Mar 24, 2017 12:48:27 GMT

Third, Trump may not care all that much about trying to protect Republican members of Congress. He himself came up as an outsider in the party, and hardly any members of Congress endorsed him. He may naturally have little loyalty to the party as a result. (Though he may live to regret it if Republicans lose the House.)

Fourth, the president doesn’t seem to care all that much about health reform in particular. It wasn’t his top priority during the campaign, and people close to him are already leaking to the New York Times’s Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman that he regrets agreeing to put it ahead of tax reform on the agenda. If it fails, he may think, So what?

Finally, Trump is vindictive and legendarily holds on to grudges. Rather than try to make GOP members of Congress more comfortable, he may want to force them to take a clear stand for or against him — so, perhaps, he can retaliate against those who remain defiant.

The problem here is that the Republicans he'll be hurting by such a strategy are precisely those who are the closest aligned to his own program - the Freedom Caucus, who are remnants of the Tea Party and share his views on anti-establishment politics and draining the swamp.

It becomes more complex, though - apparently the more he makes concessions to these guys, the less probability the bill has to get past the Senate. I'd guess a better strategy would've been to get himself behind the Freedom Caucus so that the guys who get hurt are the establishment politicians. Then Trump could claim: "I did my best, but I was shot down by the swamp people".

I suspect this to be all Trump and no Bannon - Bannon must be solidly behind the Freedom Caucus group.

The idea being that it would assist them to get rid of swamp person Paul Ryan. I wonder, though. Looks to me as if Trump is ready to go over to The Dark Side, maybe ditch Bannon.

I detest state intervention at every level although I accept that it sometimes is inevitable.What the Republicans are doing is to try improving on the impossible. Impossible, because the many unintended effects of the legislation in a country of some 250 million people are just too vast. Compounding the problem are the efforts to pretend that no one will have to pay for it and shifting payment burdens to minorities (the rich, the healthy, the future and the young). Adding to the burden is the additional admin costs inevitably imposed by such monster - not to mention the monsters of greed, corruption and inefficiency which have to be fed along the way.

Initially the Reps opposed Obamacare, now they try to improve on it. It should just be dumped. However, the problem with bread and circuses is that you cannot walk away from it until it (or society) collapses.

It may be that the retention of Obamacare (which seems to work in some sort of way, at times), will give Trump breathing space to do other things and appease both Obama and the Democrats for a while. Apart from the opinion polls, the financial implications of the Republican proposed amendments were disasterous, if a US study can be believed. So, at this stage it is perhaps not a bad idea to let it be and blame the democrats for any hiccups in the system. It is also possible to argue that the only solution is to scratch the whole thing and go back to the past. I suspect that at this stage even that will cause chaos.

I tend to see this (as your one link argued) as a victory for Bannon and his further entrenchment. I somehow doubt that Trump would easily have fired him and now even less so as the next steps are anything but clear. The situation would have been different if the changes went through. Perhaps then Ryan would have been in the driving seat. Now, not so.

For America this stay of reform might be a blessing in disguise so as to allow them more reflection on how to proceed. If that Bill went through, the party (as I read somewhere) might have felt the fall-out into the next elections.

By and large I wonder if Trump has not gained respect by allowing democratic forces to play out. The counter argument perhaps would be that he did not really have an option. A defeat of sorts, yes, but not fatal and perhaps even a positive development in the longer run. Trump's actions cannot be labelled Fascist, autocratic etc.

Post by Trog on Mar 25, 2017 10:19:24 GMT

It may be that the retention of Obamacare (which seems to work in some sort of way, at times), will give Trump breathing space to do other things and appease both Obama and the Democrats for a while. Apart from the opinion polls, the financial implications of the Republican proposed amendments were disasterous, if a US study can be believed. So, at this stage it is perhaps not a bad idea to let it be and blame the democrats for any hiccups in the system. It is also possible to argue that the only solution is to scratch the whole thing and go back to the past. I suspect that at this stage even that will cause chaos.

I tend to see this (as your one link argued) as a victory for Bannon and his further entrenchment. I somehow doubt that Trump would easily have fired him and now even less so as the next steps are anything but clear. The situation would have been different if the changes went through. Perhaps then Ryan would have been in the driving seat. Now, not so.

For America this stay of reform might be a blessing in disguise so as to allow them more reflection on how to proceed. If that Bill went through, the party (as I read somewhere) might have felt the fall-out into the next elections.

By and large I wonder if Trump has not gained respect by allowing democratic forces to play out. The counter argument perhaps would be that he did not really have an option. A defeat of sorts, yes, but not fatal and perhaps even a positive development in the longer run. Trump's actions cannot be labelled Fascist, autocratic etc.

Yes, in the end it worked out perfectly for Trump. The fact that it was pulled before it went to the vote also means that no political embarrassment accrued to Republican members of congress. It is clear that if the bill was passed, it would've become a catastrophe for the US and for the Republicans. And Trump behaved exactly how an ethical leader should: Trusting those designated to do things to do it, to back them to the hilt, and to delegate the responsibility of gauging the implications of their decisions to themselves.

It could not have been better, actually, and once the hubris of his opponents simmer down it will hit them too. I had this thought that the Democrats actually missed a massive opportunity, here - they should've helped this Bill to go through. Which eventually would've ended in a massive embarrassment for the Republicans.